Sunday, October 23, 2011

“End the blockade of Gaza,” demands Erdogan of Turkey. “End the blockade of Gaza,” echoed after him Philip Luther, the deputy director of Amnesty International Middle East and North Africa program. “End the blockade of Gaza,” the demand came in a form of expectation, following the long awaited release of Gilad Shalit.

What blockade?

Thousands of truckloads of goods of all sorts enter the Gaza Strip each month: 4,983 this July, and 4,795 the previous month, and 5,087 in August, jest as examples. There is no blockade on civilian life in Gaza, only a military one. What do they think will happen if Israel removes this security blockade? The only one there is!

More of these will happen:

The death of 16 years old Daniel Viflic last April: After 10 days of struggle he died from wounds he received from an anti tank rocket that was fired from the Gaza Strip at his school bus.

Or the murder of the in-laws, the couples Moshe and Flora Gez, and Dov and Shulamit Karlinsky: On the 18 of August, by an anti-tank rocket fired at their private car, on the road to Eilat. This act of mass murder was a part of an all out assault on civilian targets at Israel’s southern border, a border of peace with Egypt.

This blockade prevents the recurrence of such crimes. Why should we end it?

Daniel Viflic and his school bus

Victims of the August (2011) Assault on Israel's Southern border

And now, that Gilad Shalit is finally home, are we to make it easier for Hamas to fulfill its promises of more abductions?

Concern for civilian life in Gaza is understandable. But when such concerns come with gross lack of concern for civilian life in Israel that is difficult to understand. And if this continues and becomes a pattern, people might suspect that the lack of concern is the actual motivation of such demands.